UCLA at Oregon

Kevin Love got a lot of negatively charged love in his first game back home in a UCLA uniform. Daddy (Oregon great) running around wearing layers of UCLA clothing (according to Marques Johnson) did not help the situation at all.

But ultimately the game was decided on the court, and the Beached Whale almost had a 20-20 (24pts, 18reb) despite getting hammered by the Ducks. And E-Kent did not even play all of his space-eaters: Mitch Platt, F. Dors, and once-promising seven footer R. Schaefer (sp?).

UCLA's "defense" was exposed once again - it's really good when they are allowed to foul multiple times per possession. That wasn't the case during the USC game, and look at the result. Don't get me wrong, they do have a good defense, but what makes there defense so great is that they are fouling multiple teams.

But they can also win games in the last four minutes. This is something that both UCLA and Georgetown (eg Syracuse on Big Monday) have shown that they can do over and over. It's hard to beat a team when they have this "secret weapon" in their arsenal! Not to be confused with soccer club Arsenal.

Oregon had a great opportunity for a high profile win, but because freshman point K. Brown was too amped up, and Malik Hairston missed most of the last quarter of the game due to injury, the team had to depend heavily on Mighty Mouse. And Mighty Mouse makes a lose canon look organized and under control ;-)

Now there is some more pressure on the Nike Ducks to beat the USC Condoms. With USC "finding itself" again, this won't be easy, but it will be a good win for the Ducks. Their Pac-10 record is good - they haven't had a bad loss so far. We already mentioned that Washington played much better with Overton as the point, and that was not a bad Oregon loss. And lo and behold, Washington wins at ASU, adding another dangerous team in the Pac-10.

And before you count out the Washington Husker-Dos, remember that it was indeed another shortie point guard a few years ago that turned Washington from 0-5 to an NCAA darling, which ended up losing to Mike Anderson's UAB in an instant classic in the NCAAs. Is Overton the next Nate Robinson impact-wise? We blog, you decide!